Apria or Lincare

I had to send the files again.

I posted 4 Oscar pages, which was the last day of my last printout, so those were three pages and then one page was the statistics and none of them came through. I think each one was three megabytes, is that a problem for CPAP talk? Are we allowed to post results?

Are you trying to do forum attachments but can't ????

If so, see this

viewtopic/t183806/Attachment-storage-is ... MENTS.html

Guess what didn't come today from Apria? The guy that I deal with is a very nice guy and he apologized that he didn't call me in the morning like he said he would cuz I called him at 1:00 as I hadn't heard from him and he said yeah I don't know what happened let me find out. He called me back and said the machine just came in today and the truck had already gone so we can bring it to you Monday. I said no how about tomorrow and he said I don't know if they have deliveries Saturdays and he went and checked and they're going to deliver it tomorrow.

It better not be an aircurve10 or an airsence 11. We deal with so much incompetence in this field that you just can't ever rely on anything. However, these machines are the most incredible lifesavers ever, one of them.

I remember going to see Les Mis and Phantom and have such a hard time keeping my eyes open. Once I got the machine that never happened again until I took an overnight sleep study.

Alan

Alancalan, how were you able to contact your local Lincare office? When I try to call the local office or any other Lincare number, I get routed to the call center in India. Trying to deal with them is just about hopeless.

I thought I answered this three times but for some reason nothing ever went through so now I'm writing this on the Note program & I'm going to bring it over to CpapTalk and send it once it's complete.

How did I get the local number for Lincare, I believe when I went there to have my new settings put in to the S9, I worked with the respiratory therapist at the local lincare office, and I think she gave me the number or I asked for it, one or the other.

I have the number for the Apria local office, which isn't so local because it's in Palm Beach Gardens 40 miles away, where Lincare is 6 miles away.

As far as Apria and me the saga is over.

I was told I was going to get the air curve 11 on Friday, and it never came, and I was told that the salesman, I don't know what else to call him, was going to call me to let me know what time it was going to come so I stayed home all day Friday then he told me that the truck left before the machine came. This is competence? So then he arranged for a delivery on Saturday after I told him I didn't want to wait till Monday. He didn't know he could do that and again he didn't give me a time so he said he'd call me in the morning on Saturday. I called him at 9:30 on Saturday morning he never answered I never called me back. I called him at 2:30 in the afternoon he didn't answer and didn't call me back. Then it started a whole rigmarole with me calling the emergency line at Apria. They said they would get to the driver in the driver was call me. The driver never called me because I called apria emergency line cuz I was getting disgusted with all this and they said they would find out what's wrong and they would take care of it. Without going into more depth a repetitive useless steps I had to take about this it went on all day and all night up to 12:30 Saturday night and I told the guy on the emergency line give me a favor don't revive this thing just cancel it. I give up and I don't want to deal with Apria anymore.

The doorbell rings Sunday morning it's Apria with my machine. A really nice guy delivered it and he said he was trying to call me he made 10 phone calls and I never answered and he said the number I have is a 516 number that I don't have anymore and apria got that number because when I was dealing with a local DME that was really nice in mineola Long Island after you took it over and the service don't also. The best I've had so far is from Lincare in that Delray office. The guy who runs that office, Patrick, is really a good guy, a smart guy and honest. So the salesman who arranged for the machine didn't have the right number and the driver had the wrong number. So I decided to accept it even though I wanted nothing to do with that Apria especially because they're in Palm Beach Gardens which is 40 mi away and about 45 minutes not in traffic and lincare is 6 mi away and 10 minutes in traffic. But after waiting for a machine for 10 years once it was here I decided to just keep it and next time I won't use Apria and I'll keep the supplies with Lincare.

So, I see this thing that says Fisher Paykel wrapped with the machine. God forbid they ask me what mask I'm using, which is a p30i, not to mention that they initially ordered the Air Sense 11 and I've never used a CPAP in my life. Plus the worst mask I ever had by far which gave me apnea events in the 30s per hour was a Fisher paykel full face mix and I swore I'd never wear a mask from them again.

This is my doctor fault who's supposed to know what I need for sleep apnea treatment and what I'm using. I highly doubt if the doctor had anything to do with this cuz he's an ENT doctor and I think he only does surgery or procedures in the office so the PA or nurse practitioner who I never saw before, didn't know me and obviously didn't read anything that was in my file since I was going there since 2013, totally screwed up the order. And I was repetitive because I knew something was going to go wrong. I even said if they don't have it yet I will wait I do not want an Air Curve 10. I couldn't be more clear. I told them a thousand times I want the Air Curve 11 ONLY and I don't want the Air Curve 10 just the 11. They don't listen, they don't hear and I guess they can't read my file. So I decided to keep the new machine and I decide to open it and guess what, it's an Air Curve 10 and I said to the guy listen you're really nice I really appreciate that you came on Easter Sunday but take this back and tell them I don't want anything to do with Apria ever again ever. I will get my machine from Lincare when it comes in because they are close. and by and they listen and they understand and probably aren't afraid to correct the doctor's office when they have no idea what they're doing. The guy who runs it and uses a machine.

I don't know how this salesman lied to me and told me they had the Air Curve 11s in and even said that the delivery truck left before the new machine got there, which I thought meant it didn't have air curve 11 up till yesterday The driver said they didn't have those machines at all and they don't know when they're coming in. The exact thing that Lincare said to me and the guy there said I don't know how Apria is getting them if I don't have them cuz I sell more Resmed machines than they do.

So I'm still using the S9. As long as I didn't accept the delivery there wouldn't be any issues with Medicare that's why I opened it up. Once I signed for it there would have been hell to pay trying to reverse all that out. Ironically last night I fell asleep without putting the mask on and that never happens unless I am exhausted or totally spent and this whole episode made me totally spent from the doctor to the stupidity of the people at Apria. I woke up at 7:00 and then realized I didn't have the mask on so I slept another 2 hours with the mask and I feel fine.

One of the people I spoke to last night the one I spoke to about 12:30 a.m. said to me this happens a lot when the doctors order CPAP machines and they should have ordered BiPaps. I don't know anyone on CPAPtalk that would make that mistake and these are supposed to be sleep doctors and they don't know what ResMed sells

What an ordeal!

Order was canceled at apria in the general manager called me and he was very nice and said he doesn't know when they're coming in just like the guy at Lincare and just like with some of you people here said which is why this place is such a good place to come to.

If I was living in Palm Beach Gardens I would go there Apria rather than driving to Delray for Lincare. Not everybody has the luxury of having close DMEs.

The GM was a really a nice guy and he actually found me that selector button for the S9 that's missing. Why not ask when they're apologizing! After talking to him I think the kid who completely ignored my 80 questions of are you sure you have the AC 12, we'll do it again. I don't know why he did did he think I was an idiot or maybe he just didn't know the difference. My doctor's office certainly didn't.

Alan

I have Crapria office local to me in Oceanside California. Some of the folks there are very pleasant.
However they either know little or nothing about CPAP.
Last Christmas we order an Airsense 11 and choice of mask and supplies.
They brought out a 10 and argued when I said we wanted the 11.
Then we talked about masks. I said we need a mask where the connection was on top of the head like a P30i. They insisted on a p20 hose nose. We had to threaten to walk out more than once to get what we came for.
When we returned a few months later looking for a full face mask, the young RT didn't know as much about CPAP as my son's huskie.

It seems that all the best DMEs are the ones that don't waste their time dealing with insurance.

bwexler wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 03, 2024 6:44 pm

They brought out a 10 and argued when I said we wanted the 11.

I simply don't understand the attitude. not just with CPAP but with everything else.

if you don't know what the hell you're talking about, why are you in the business?

sheesh!

I also don't understand why my spell checker now insists that CPAP needs to be capitalized.

Zonker
It is known as the Peter Principle. People tend to rise to their level of incompetence and stay in that position.
There is also the 80/20 rule which I believe has morphed into the 90/10 rule. Tis is where 10% of the people do 90% of the work, the other 90% of the people have facilitated the Peter Principle.
Like you I observe this problem everywhere I look.

bwexler wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 03, 2024 8:42 pm

Zonker
It is known as the Peter Principle. People tend to rise to their level of incompetence and stay in that position.

familiar with it. but doesn't mean I have to like it. and I don't.

<grumble,grumble,grumble>

It's not the Peter Principle because it starts with the doctors who don't know anything because they think they're beyond having to learn all this. My doctor's office ordered me an Air Sense 11, even though in my 21 years of using sleep apnea products I never once used a CPAP. The same doctor's office that ordered the S9 which is a VPAP or BiPAP, they tried to replace the S9 with a CPAP. You wonder if anybody ever looks in the files. And once I brought in all my papers from Oscar, wouldn't it have been nice and appropriate if they would have taken the time to go over them with me so they have some idea of what I need. No instead they have CPAP planted in their little brains and probably screw up a lot of orders.
But they stuck a tube up my nose so they could bill it.

When I called up my doctor's office yesterday oh excuse me they called me because they got the notice from apria that they didn't have the air curve 11. So I called him back after I spoke to him the first time and said you do know that you ordered an Air Sense 11 the first time and when I spoke to the kids at apria I sent him let me know what they orders, which was actually confirmed by one of the people I spoke to from apria the fourth person in the from the corporate emergency hotline, who said they screw up the difference between cpaps and bypass all the time. How incredibly disgusting is that?

I didn't trust the doctor's office even though I told them time after time I want only the air curve 11 and if it's not in I WILL WAIT and I need a BiPAP not a CPAP. You'd think there are 8,000 different machines that they have to know out there. Right now ResMed owns the industry so how do you not know the difference between an Air Sense and an Air Curve when you're the one placing the orders and how do you know what's in and what's not in if you don't pay attention to what's going on when you place orders. Once again the doctors don't think they should be responsible for this function because they think they're like Gods.

So I don't think this is the Peter Principle at all, it's more like arrogance and laziness because nobody's teaching these people about what's available and what's the difference between a CPAP and a BiPAP. You don't have to be a user to understand that one is continuous pressure that is harder to get used to when you were breathing out past pressure of 15 coming in at you. The BiPAP has it different inspiration and expiration pressure. And if you're teaching someone you can say to them imagine air is coming into your mouth or nose at a pretty good clip and you have to find a way to exhale past that positive pressure coming at you versus a machine that has one pressure for the air coming in and it drops way down for the air that you have to breathe out so you're not fighting it all night long. Many people cannot use the CPAP which is continuous positive pressure that's why they use a BiPAP. Bi as in two different pressures. Some people never get used to the CPAP and their machines are in their closet and never come out. I got a BiPAP in 2003 and have never used anything else but a BiPAP.

The industry has grown fast and the doctors aren't doing their share in training people in their offices and neither are the DMEs. Maybe they should have all these people who work in this industry placing and receiving orders during their training if there is any have them try on both a CPAP and a BiPap to see the difference.

It has to be at least one more screw up in this ordering of this device.

I just saw an add for an Aircurve Vauto, with actual customer reviews.
This suggests they may actually be available to customers who want one.

bwexler wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 04, 2024 3:23 pm

I just saw an add for an Aircurve Vauto, with actual customer reviews.
This suggests they may actually be available to customers who want one.

where did you see this ad?

bwexler, I've had the AirCurve 11 for over a week now. And I got it a day after I ordered it. So they're definately being stocked in the industry. It may just be that your supplier is not as quick as others.